


From the Only Place You've Known

by JustLikeAPapercut



Series: Delicate things [2]
Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: AU, F/M, alternative universe, slightly dented people, smart lady makes teeny tiny mistake
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:06:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28491369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustLikeAPapercut/pseuds/JustLikeAPapercut
Summary: She knows by the time she goes to bed on Sunday that his silence is an answer, but she’s spent weeks walking around thinking about him, the ache and the pain only growing.
Relationships: Gerri Kellman/Roman "Romulus" Roy
Series: Delicate things [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2072925
Comments: 58
Kudos: 64





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is the second in a series and probably won't make sense without reading the first, but you do you. I haven't worn a bra in five days, there are no rules and the points are made up.

* * *

_so why do you fill my sorrow_ _  
_ _with the words you've borrowed_ _  
_ _from the only place you've known_

— Damien Rice, “Delicate”

* * *

Gerri’s so enraged when she leaves Roman’s brownstone, so completely beyond reason, she has to take her blood pressure when she gets home. Can feel the dizziness that sometimes accompanies its elevation since she started the medication, tells herself that she needs to be sensible, calm down. 

She takes off her jewelry and strips off her work clothes before throwing herself in the shower, becomes enraged all over again when she thinks of Roman’s shortsightedness, his stupidity, the way he selfishly proclaimed his love right before he went and threw her trust away. Looked at her pleadingly afterward, like he’d hoped she’d somehow understand, a happy ending still possible, no matter that he’d detonated everything they’ve been steadily working toward for months, hundreds of maneuvers and conversations, manipulations that have piled up around them like mountains. But none between them, or so she’d believed, stupidly trusted his promises and his doting affection, the warm little cocoon of fiction they’ve been spinning around each other for weeks. The hope he’d sold her and that she’d naively, almost blindly believed, Roman always so earnest, so convincing when he needed to be. 

She makes sure not to cross paths with him at work the next day, feels foolish and weak when she looks around her own office and thinks of him: the chair he favors but never sits in properly; the corner he pushed her into when he last kissed her; the vase of her favorite flowers that appeared right after that first kiss by the stairs, has magically stayed full ever since. 

She thinks it’ll be easier when he’s gone, but he’s dutifully respectful of her space all day, doesn’t press to see her even though he easily could, and that enrages her too. She’s angry enough to call him on her way home, but he doesn’t answer and she feels relieved at that, isn’t sure what she even would have said. 

She doesn’t answer when he calls her back, sends him to voicemail when he tries again. Sits in her home office with a pile of work and a stiff drink, strategizing how best to keep her job. She thinks Karl will finally be out, unless he’s been feeding information to Stewy and Sandy, has already worked out some kind of deal. Cyd will likely move on or (less likely) retire, her hatred for Stewy Hosseini well documented. Karolina is a bit of a wildcard, may follow Roman to wherever he lands, though that will take months or even a year to arrive, and by then Karolina will have proven her worth to the new king, just as Gerri undoubtedly will. 

Roman’s perfunctory letter of resignation is as bland as she would have predicted, clearly not the work of a great mind, but she can tell where he added his own words, the personal flourishes where he thought to praise staff, thank them for their trust. The idiosyncrasies of his use of language stand out as plainly as if they’d been highlighted, and she hates that she can hear his voice, knows the exact inflection he’d use if saying it out loud, the odd little sounds he makes when he gets nervous, tries to downplay the gravity of whatever’s being said. 

It’s clear that Karolina’s blindsided by it, perhaps hurt too, and Cyd seems enraged, and Gerri could take solace in all of that, but all of it feels like such a meaningless sacrifice. All of their work gone, Roman foolishly, impulsively offering up his throat to Sandy’s blade, an act of ritual suicide that no one around him appreciates or even properly understands. 

She hears some of the assistants talking about how it was ‘sort of nice’ to see the Roy brothers walk out together, a united front in the face of adversity, and the mental image of that makes her scoff, perhaps confirms some of her darkest suspicions about Roman’s fickleness, his inability to drive a knife in when it’s needed. 

Isla’s stuffed animal haunts her for two weeks before she decides to have it sent to Roman’s home. It’s tempting to simply get rid of it, toss it out with the trash, but she doesn’t have it in her to be cruel to the girl, regrets that the last time she saw her, she sent her upstairs with a harsh word. She knows Roman will try to reach out after that, perhaps call her incessantly because he has precious little impulse control when it comes to her, and so she disconnects the tiny spare phone she once saw as a lifeline, means to ditch it all together but somehow keeps forgetting. Remembers only when she fumbles through the drawers of her nightstands. Tells herself that the lapse in memory doesn’t mean anything. 

“He was weirdly impressive,” Stewy says, one day in the elevator, the two of them alone, and she isn’t sure what he means. The man has all of Roman’s charisma and chaos, but none of his ability to listen to people or make lasting connections, a rotating line of assistants already streaming in and out of his office. 

“I’m sorry?” she asks carefully. Tamps down on her annoyance the way used to with Logan, easy to fall back on the muscle memory. 

“Roman,” Stewy says, like it’s obvious. “I thought it was all bullshit at first, but then it was clear he meant it. Dude would have ripped off his skin to keep all of you safely employed.” He favors her with a smile that’s equal parts malice and glee, probably some species of uppers mixed in. “Let’s hope your work product was worth his loyalty, huh?” 

She doesn’t take the bait, gives him only a thin smile, but the comment bothers more than it should, adds to her growing annoyance that the new leadership is underutilizing everyone, most especially herself. 

She has dinner with Claire and her new boyfriend, another writer who clearly envies her daughter’s talent and will try to sabotage her success, be it consciously or unconsciously, the moment he thinks Claire’s invested enough to let him get away with it. It’s the same shit, different day, and Gerri’s so annoyed that her educated, articulate daughter can’t see the bad pattern, tries to swallow down criticisms along with her wine, make polite conversation about the renovation to Claire’s new apartment. 

They’re almost through with their meal when she notices Tabitha at the bar, chatting away with another woman. She doesn’t think it’s a date given the body language, but maybe it’s different between women, some of the coyness and posturing abandoned in the absence of a male ego. 

She knows the second Tabitha spots her because her body language changes, spine stiffening, face abruptly turned away at an angle to avoid looking in Gerri’s direction. It’s disappointing to learn that the woman’s poker face is so poor, no matter her thriving business, but beneath that observation there’s a pain, a kernel of shame, because Tabitha’s reacting in the manner that women so often do when spotting the ex of a beloved friend. The ex-husbands who’ve done old law school classmates wrong; the men who’ve fucked and lied their way through entire social sets.

She doesn’t catch most of what Claire’s been saying about her new project, but that’s probably for the best. Writers can be so painfully precious about their own work, as if the world might stop spinning if there was a sudden shortage of unreliable narrators, tales of self-inflicted woe.

Tabitha leaves quickly after that, kissing her friend on the cheek. Refrains from taking the two most obvious paths from the bar to the door, her circuitous route another tell that Gerri would never have allowed herself.

“Don’t you think so?” Claire asks, and Gerri has no idea the topic anymore.

“Whatever you say, dear,” she rejoins, and her daughter’s face slackens with hurt at that. A family tradition Gerri’s managed to avoid so far, succumbing right before they crossed the finish line.

She feels restless the week after that, not enough work to keep her as busy as usual, Christmas coming up, the family stresses that relentlessly shadow it. 

“Drinks?” Karolina asks her after a painfully tedious meeting, and Gerri feels herself nodding. 

“Yeah,” she sighs. “Let’s.”

Cyd meets them at the bar at the Carlyle, Gerri pushing away certain unwelcome memories as they walk in, settling into seats. 

“You think Sandy pays Stewy a bonus for every word he manages to rattle out of that coked out mouth?” Cyd floats, Karolina giving her a half smile.

“Would certainly explain a few things,” Gerri allows, sipping her martini. 

“It’s worse than Roman,” Cyd complains, and Karolina pulls a face at that. 

“Roman almost always had a point,” Karolina rejoins. “And he listened to me.” 

“That kid really fucked us in the end, didn’t he?” Cyd says, looking expectantly at Gerri here, Karolina watching the exchange with an expressionless face now. 

“I don’t know about that,” Gerri breathes out. Motions delicately for another drink because hers is rapidly disappearing, Cyd scoffing at her words. “I suspect. . . Roman did the best he could when he was put in a difficult position. Maybe tried to save the rest of us by bowing out.” 

It’s taken her a month and some distance, but she actually believes that now. Still feels angry as hell at him, but no longer courts the darker reading of his actions, the voice that said he was selfish and just wanted out, had been telling her for a year that he didn’t want an increase in title and responsibility, inevitably made good on those words. 

“There’s clearly something we don’t know,” Karolina says, sipping her wine. “But I don’t know what they could have possibly had on him. There were no affairs and even if there were, his wife was dead. He hadn’t touched drugs since before he had a kid, only dabbled anyway. Hardly even drank much, by Waystar standards.” 

“You think it was the sex with men?” Cyd guesses. 

“But everyone knows about that,” Karolina shrugs one shoulder, Gerri shifting in her seat. “Open secret. And no one ever cared about that except Logan, and who gives a fuck about him now.”

“I don’t think we’ll ever know,” Gerri interrupts, sounding philosophical here. “But he did some kind things on his way out, tried hard to protect people when the Kendall shit started up. I can’t imagine he just decided on a whim to leave everyone in the lurch.” 

“I should call the little bastard,” Cyd says, sounding aggrieved. “He really was my favorite of the lot.” 

“Good luck getting a hold of him,” Karolina replies, finger tracing the stem of her wine glass. “I can’t track down an active number for him and he’s not living out of the brownstone right now.” 

They both look at Gerri expectantly here, but both of those pieces of information are news to her and she’s torn between hiding that or playing up, admitting she doesn’t know where Roman Roy is or what he’s doing. 

“Frank would probably know,” Gerri guesses, splitting the difference. 

“I already tried,” Karolina says. “I wanted to apologize to Roman for not being in touch sooner, giving it all a bit of distance until we had the lay of the new land. But Frank wouldn’t give me anything. Just said he’d pass on my regards.” 

“That doesn’t sound great,” Cyd says, the lines around her mouth deepening in a way that Gerri finds an unpleasant reflection of her own face’s fraught relationship with gravity. “Oh, fuck. Now I feel guilty.” 

“It was a stressful time,” Gerri dismisses. “Hard to pay attention to anything besides what was directly in our own laps.” 

“Still,” Karolina says softly. “You’ll tell me if you hear from him, right?” The question is directed to her, and Gerri has to take a brief moment to swallow down something painful and sharp in her throat, produce a pleasant enough expression that the present company will actually believe, not immediately spot as bullshit. 

“Of course,” she says. “But I haven’t yet and I’m as in the dark as the two of you.” 

They talk about work the rest of the time - mostly who’ll stay, who’ll get the axe. Cyd says she’ll give it a year and then retire, but Gerri doesn’t believe her. Thinks she’ll probably hop to a smaller network, idle away in that job until she dies. 

It occurs to her on the way home that part of the reason she’s been so angry at Roman is that he didn’t give her a choice, no matter that she's a sixty-year-old woman with high blood pressure and a personal life that was nearly non-existent after Baird, never enough time for anything but work. She considers the possibility that he didn’t present her with a choice because he already knew what she’d choose, understood that she was always about the job. Chose it over her children and in many ways over her marriage, undoubtedly would have chosen it over Roman and Isla, too. 

. . . 

She’s on her way to work when sees a young woman with thick brown hair and an elegant silhouette walking on the sidewalk, headphones covering her ears, and she idly thinks that Isla will look something like that when she grows up. 

It’s a random thought at the start of her day, but it knocks her off balance, makes her distracted in her first meeting. Spends the time wondering if Isla would even recognize her in ten years, if they bumped into each other in a coffee shop or a store. Imagines whether there would be a flash of recognition or even pain, perhaps only the momentary confusion brought by a familiar face that one can’t quite place. 

She’s still thinking about that when Frank calls with an offer of dinner, and she should be wise to turn him down, but he’s the only one who knows, is perhaps reaching out on behalf of Roman. Feels surprised to realize that she actually wants that, would welcome some kind of reconnection, a good measure of her anger having evaporated in the previous weeks. 

“Your hair’s getting long again,” Frank observes when they take their seats at a quiet table in an otherwise busy restaurant. 

“Maybe I’m trying to relive some glory days,” she says, a joke she finds somewhat regrettable. Blames the words on her momentary distraction, remembering Roman’s fondness for longer hair. 

“How are you?” he asks, an entry level question, but he sounds sincere enough. So they chat about their children and various ex-colleagues, the few bits of Waystar information she doesn’t mind handing him. “Gerri,” he says, and the way he pauses is an obvious wind up, though for what she isn’t sure. She can’t quite read him right now. “I wanted to apologize for the shit I said that one night. When you’d just gotten back from Argestes.” 

The fact that he doesn’t mention Roman’s name isn’t lost on her, though she wonders how much he actually knows. She highly doubts he would be here, merrily breaking bread with her, if he knew how cruel and cutting she’d been to Roman in the end, her parting words chosen for maximum damage, carpet bombing him with silence after that. 

“Water under the bridge,” she says. “I’m sure a good portion of those words were earned, given our history.” 

Baird was easy to manipulate, freshly divorced with an obvious preference for petite blonds. Their union offered her a seat at the table from which she would have been otherwise excluded, an added measure of financial security. The care and affection were real, but so were the maneuvers, the ways she would use her young, kind face to coax confidences out of colleagues and then promptly turn them over to Baird, their union one of a matching set of knives. 

Frank worked with both of them the longest, survived in the trenches just like she did. She can’t even count the times she’s fucked him over, no matter their mutual respect and begrudging trust. 

“No, really,” he says. “That was none of my business and you two obviously cared for each other.” 

The past time of the last verb makes her inwardly flinch, though she simply listens impassively, sipping her wine. Allows the subject to move on to something superficial and pleasant before she draws him back. 

“How are they?” she asks. Hates that she cares so much. “Is he well?” 

“He has a first-rate ability to push through,” Frank smiles, punctuating the statement with a shrug. 

“Someone said that he left the city,” she pushes on, but his smile turns thin and sad here, the kind of expression he would turn on Kendall and Roman when he was stuck being the messenger for Logan, the boys perpetually left out of their father’s plans. 

“He’s trying his best,” he allows. Doesn’t give her anything else to go on. 

“His best was surprisingly good,” she admits. Allows just a little bit of the pain to bleed through to the surface. 

The dinner wraps up without any agenda being revealed, a first for the two of them, no axe to grind in the name of a social call. He isn’t going to give her any information about Roman, clearly isn’t here on his behalf. Doesn’t seem particularly interested in what’s going on at Waystar either, noticeably relieved to be done with the shitshow before it was recast. 

“You aren’t dying, are you?” she prods him, and there’s a hesitation from him that makes her stop short here. “Frank?” 

“Nothing so dramatic,” he assures. “Little trouble with my prostate. Won’t even need surgery, just a drug cocktail.” 

“Okay,” she puzzles. “Well, do you need anything?” 

“I’m fine,” he laughs, his amusement understandable. She doesn’t really do warm and fuzzy, except perhaps for the two people whose whereabouts she doesn’t even know now. “Just felt like cleaning the ol’ slate, I guess.” 

She wonders if Franks’ health hiccup will bring Roman scurrying back to the city, highly suspects it would if Frank actually tells him. But he’s so paternal with him, he might very well withhold the information, not worry Roman needlessly over a small scare. 

It’s a parent’s job to shield their children, control the flow of damaging information, but it’s a partner (a wife, a girlfriend) whose job it is to be open, forthcoming. It’s easy enough distinction and yet, for years she had it permanently reversed, marveling a little here at the Frank’s and Roman’s of the world. Wonders if it’s easier for men or simply constitutionally harder for her. 

. . . 

Emily comes in from California the week before Christmas, books herself into a hotel, for which Gerri is always grateful, privately denotes her the easier, pleasanter daughter. 

“Do you want to do something on Sunday, or do you have plans?” Emily asks, sounding a little too careful for Gerri’s liking. 

“No plans,” Gerri breezes. Tops off her daughter’s coffee cup. 

“Okay,” Emily says, still with that same tone, and here Gerri scoffs.

“Oh, please just say it,” she says. “You were always the forthright one.” 

“Well, you were seeing someone for a while, right?” her daughter asks, the fact that she already knows the answer made plain by her tone. “Suddenly using the Rhinebeck house. Sounding almost cheerful when I called. Dragging home well after midnight on school nights.” 

“Your sister would do well to mind her own business,” Gerri sighs, doesn’t bother to lie.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Emily allows. “You aren’t going to anyway. I’m just trying to be polite. Say it’s okay if you already have plans with someone I’m sure I will never meet.” 

“No plans,” Gerri repeats, voice even as Emily’s expression falters. 

“So then brunch,” Emily says, clearly trying to paper over the awkward moment, and Gerri tries not to bristle, feel overexposed in front of a person who came out of her own body. 

“Invite your sister,” she instructs. 

“Ugh,” Emily rolls her eyes. “But she’ll bring Howard.” 

“What’s wrong with Howard?” she asks amicably. Could easily make a fifty-point list in the answering of that question. 

“You mean besides that his name is _Howard_?” Emily drawls, earning her a snicker and a well deserved pat to her cheek. 

Work is work, increasingly boring, not the adrenaline rush it was only two months ago. She thinks in time Sandy and Stewy will trust her jdugment, listent to her advice, but they aren’t there yet and she’s beginning to wonder if she even wants to wait them out. Both of her homes are paid off, her retirement accounts are many times what she needs. The extra money is nice, a delightful reward, but she’s mostly in it for the challenge and now that that’s evaporated, she finds herself emotionally divorced from it all. Doesn’t let herself waste time, wondering what she’d be up to at work if Roman was still at her side, throwing out crazed ideas and drawing people in, the most tedious meeting still bearable when she sat next to him, deliberately drawing his attention with a flick of her pen or a touch to her bracelet, dark eyes always tracking her movement as she feigned complete focus. 

Brunch with the girls is mostly fine, though Claire does bring that idiot Howard. At least his talking eats up a good portion of their time together, Gerri rarely put on the spot to respond to questions about work, feign praise for one of Claire’s awards. 

“Well at least you’re free of all the Roy’s now,” Claire says, and Gerri’s mouth goes dry, reaching for her water. “None of those psychopaths dragging you down anymore.” 

“They weren’t all psychopaths,” Gerri says carefully. Has to work a little harder than normal to keep the edge out of her voice. 

“Siobhan’s fine,” Emily shrugs. “Condescending and hypocritical, but that’s just standard issue in this city.” 

“And it isn’t in San Francisco?” Claire prods. “Oh God, you’re become one of them already.” 

“What is that supposed to mean?” Emily demands, and Gerri doesn’t break it up. Knows this argument will buy her a good five minutes to calm down, get her thoughts in order. Not lash out at her eldest daughter because she isn’t actually unencumbered by Roy’s, still has one very much under her skin. An affliction she keeps trying to wait out; a dry winter cough she can’t get rid of, no matter how warm she keeps. 

She snaps at Claire in the car about something else, Emily coming to her sister’s defense, and it’s always for the best when they’re on the same side, the two of them united as a single front, but the best still leaves her alone and outnumbered, two copies of her own face staring back at her in angry disappointment. 

. . . 

Tabitha has no business meeting her for coffee, but she still does so and isn’t even hard to convince her. Gerri tries not to read into that, wonder if Roman’s expressed a certain longing of his own. 

“I shouldn’t be here,” Tabitha says immediately, one arm defensively folded over her torso, hand resting on her arm. 

The woman could really use a mentor, but Gerri has no desire to do so and perhaps also has no business guiding anyone, seeing as how the last person she attempted to mentor ended up in her bed. 

“Is he well?” Gerri asks immediately, sees no advantage to beating around the bush. 

“Kind of,” Tabitha allows. “It’s quiet there. Isla likes all of the sports and horseback riding, doesn’t complain much about missing her friends.” She pauses and Gerri waits her out, doesn’t interject. “But I know he hates California and Ojai especially. He doesn’t ever talk about missing New York, but that’s just proof that he does because he also doesn’t talk about missing y-” She cuts herself off before she finishes the word, but she doesn’t have to, it’s already enough. 

“I think this is the part where you’re supposed to flog me for being a bitch to your friend,” Gerri offers with a quirk of her eyebrow. Watches Tabitha fiddle with the string of her tea bag for a moment. 

“He doesn’t talk about it,” she admits. “He said once that it ended and ended badly, but he never brings it up and I try not to push.” 

“I’d like to get a hold of him,” Gerri says simply. “There are things I need to say.” 

“Sorry,” Tabitha shakes her head. “I practically took a blood oath to get the number. I’m not giving it out and, no offense, but I’m _especially_ not giving it to you.”

“Have you ever been in love with someone but didn’t get the chance to tell them?” Gerri asks. A revealing question, showing her soft underbelly and all that, but also a well chosen manipulation. Most young women lose all sense when it comes to the art and tragedy of unrequited love. 

“Yes,” Tabitha swallows. “A time or two.” 

“Then you understand my dilemma,” Gerri frowns. 

The poor woman never really had a chance. 

She thinks about buying a new burner phone but then, in a moment of masochistic impulse, decides to reactivate the old one. Grows irrationally frustrated to learn that the previous number isn’t available, already reassigned, but perhaps that’s better. A chance for the element of surprise. 

She thinks about calling him on New Year’s day, press the advantage of the melancholy and hope that comes with that holiday, thinks if she’s careful he’ll hear her out. But then the day comes and Gerri realizes she has no idea what to say, spends the daylight hours picking up the phone only to put it down again. Decides to wait until bedtime, a ritual they both enjoyed, but then the pressure of that proves overwhelming and she doesn’t place the call. 

There’s a construction project at the Rhinebeck house that probably requires her attention, so she trundles off one weekend, road conditions iffy but manageable, NPR her only company. She hasn’t been in the house since everything imploded at Waystar, though Claire’s used it twice. She wonders if her daughter noticed the change to the guest room, the sudden explosion of purple. Silently hopes that whatever questions her eldest has quietly squirreled away don’t turn up in her next book. 

It’s unpleasant and painful to sleep in the bed alone, the level of discomfort far greater than when Baird passed, which feels ridiculous, worthy of mocking, because Roman passed less than ten nights in this bed, body curled against hers. And yet, the memory of his gentleness haunts her, drives her out of the room and into Emily’s old one, a sleeping pill taken for good measure. 

The housekeeper has reorganized again, which is always a nightmare, feels like she wastes hours just figuring out where her own shit is, but then she sets up shop in the sun room, work at the ready. Gets through an hour of emails and two hours of calls before she reaches for her coffee cup, notices the smallish pink crystal sitting on the table, by the vase. Feels a sharp, abrupt stab of pain here, her eyes momentarily filling with tears. 

The crystal is smooth, cool to the touch, and she worries it with her thumb as she thinks. Tries to picture where Roman is living in Ojai and what his home there might be like. Can just imagine Isla prancing around on a horse, proud of every daring achievement, her father smiling but still so nervous, always watching for her to fall. She doesn’t know what the crystal is or whether it’s found in Ojai, perhaps Grace’s mother bought it at some corporate chain store with a hippy facade, imports its merchandise from Taiwan. 

She can’t bring herself to eat dinner or even make herself a drink. Deliberately ticks away the hours until it’s after ten o’clock in California, Isla safely in bed, Roman probably winding down. She still doesn’t know what she’s going to say, thinks maybe she’ll just call and figure it out as she goes, gauge his level of anger before she decides on a strategy. He doesn’t answer, which shouldn’t be a surprise but somehow still is, no matter that he doesn’t know this number, innumerable vipers still awaiting him in New York area codes.

She hangs up without leaving a voicemail, doesn’t trust her own voice. 

She sends him a text. Simple, concise. Wonders if he’ll call back tonight or perhaps text, but nothing comes before she surrenders to a fitful sleep, and nothing comes the next day either, the entire drive back to the city spent with the phone in the cupholder. 

She knows by the time she goes to bed on Sunday that his silence is an answer, but she’s spent weeks walking around thinking about him, the ache and the pain only growing. No longer pushes away the memories of his doting sincerity, the way he never seemed to tire of her voice, her words, her body; would reach for her in the night if she rolled over, wanting her even in his sleep. 

She’s typing out another message before she knows it, an apology of sorts but also a confession. She doesn’t have a solution to the puzzle, isn’t sure what it is he might want from her, but the one thing she’s always struggled with was (painfully enough) what Roman seemed to crave. So, she gives him her thoughts and her feelings, words chosen with great care. But the little phone still doesn’t buzz, doesn’t once beep, and when she goes to sleep the next night, she dreams of rattlesnakes, wild things chasing her through cottonwood trees.

. . .


	2. Chapter 2

Gerri goes into work on Monday feeling hungover, a bad night of sleep and her concentration muddied by Roman’s silence. Allows her assistant to ply her with more coffee than is strictly necessary, could probably use the help. 

Stewy’s jammed his needledick into another conflict of interest, something that’s going to bite Cyd and ATN on the ass, and she spends half her day extracting Waystar from it, plods through carefully, choosing a route that Sandy will respect and Stewy will feel indebted for, no matter that she’s slyly driving a wedge between them. It’s a complicated dance, but she perfected it with Logan years ago, doesn’t require her full attention to get the steps right. 

Roman’s one resounding weakness is impulse control, so she can’t for the life of her imagine that he read her texts and still decided upon silence, not even an angry response shot back if her words landed poorly. The more she thinks about it, the more certain she becomes that he blocked her number after that first text, had just enough wherewithal to spare himself whatever came afterward. It’s a rational, levelheaded choice that stabs at her, no real way to reach out now, his disinterest in hearing from her made clear. She knows it’s what she deserves, but she spends the day angry. Angry at Roman for once doing the sensible thing with regard to her, angry at Stewy for being one more spraying dick she needs to clean up after, angry at herself for being cruel and punitive to the person who’s voice helped her fall asleep. 

She talks to Claire on the way home that night, listens to her daughter bitch and moan endlessly about contractors she obviously failed to vet. Makes supportive sounds at all the right places, knows better than to weigh in with her opinion here. 

“Are you alright?” Claire asks, and Gerri pauses, phone to her ear. “Mom, you sound off.”

“I think I might be coming down with something,” she says. Closes her eyes at the lie, pressure building in her forehead. 

“Well, take care of yourself,” Claire says, sounding unusually gentle. “Get some rest. Maybe take your first sick day this decade.” 

“I’ll take it under advisement,” she replies. Knows that anything else will give her daughter more cause to worry. 

She stays in the shower too long, can feel the way the hot water has chapped her already dry skin when she gets out, a towel secured around her as she shuffles into her bedroom, fumbling around for her blood pressure medicine. There’s a glass of water next to the pill bottle, something her cleaning service evidently missed, and before she can summon the energy to be annoyed at that, she remembers the way Roman left her water next to her pills, how she was surprised and delighted the first time he did it. 

The phone is in her hand before she can think it through, the call connecting as she takes a shaky breath, but it rings and rings, rings out to a voicemail that’s not set up, she can’t even leave message he won’t even fucking hear, and she closes her eyes at the cheery, automated voice before hanging up.

He won’t see it, it’s pointless. It’s over. But the pain is almost unbearable now, probably how people expected her to feel when Baird up and died, and she sends Roman another text, sitting on her bed with only a towel around her, bedding no doubt growing damp. 

_Rome, please._

She feels better for sending it out into the ether; worse because she’ll never get a response. Takes her pills and drinks her water. Tries to convince herself the pain will pass, that she can muscle through it, that she should be as sensible as Roman has evidently chosen to be. 

. . . 

She goes to Rhinebeck to check on the construction again, possibly because she’s feeling masochistic, wants some salt in the wound she’s now also trying to ignore. 

The renovations to the bathrooms are done, but the next step is the roof, will have to wait for a better stretch of weather. She calls Emily to check in, allay any fears Claire has planted in her sister. Chats about the new bathroom tile and Emily’s latest promotion and then the man her daughter’s been merrily stringing along. 

“He asked to meet you,” Emily chuckles, and there’s something dark there, a trait she got from her mother, best not too closely examined in the bright light of a snowy day. 

“I have been known to meet people,” Gerri says in a lilting voice, already knows the response she’ll get. 

“Uh, no thanks.” 

“No thanks because you’re going to drop him soon, or no thanks because you don’t want him to meet me?”

“Mom,” Emily whines, and Gerri settles on the couch in sun room, picks up the pink crystal that’s still sitting on the table, worrying it as her daughter hems and haws. 

“If you’re not serious about him, he deserves to know,” she finds herself saying. Not at all her standard advice in these matters. 

“Wow,” Emily chuckles. “Am I about to get a commitment lecture from you, of all people?” 

“What does that mean?” she arches an eyebrow, no matter that her daughter can’t see it. “I was married to your father for twenty-eight years.” 

“And he’s been gone for more than six,” Emily shoots back. “But you haven’t introduced us to anyone in all that time, and all available evidence indicates that you haven’t been living like a nun.” 

“Mmm, that depends,” she hedges. “Do nuns drink?” 

“ _Mom_.” 

“This isn’t about me,” she tries again. “Or it doesn’t have to be.” She rubs her thumb against the crystal, no longer cool in her hand, stares out at the snow still piling outside. “Emily, you don’t have to repeat your parents’ mistakes.” 

The conversation moves on after that, neither one of them keen on dwelling in the dramatic or the emotional, but it’s a longer conversation that than they’ve had in sometime and after they hang up, Gerri wonders why she’s able to manage now with Emily but only ever seems to make things worse when it comes to Claire. 

She works well into the evening, makes herself a sandwich and soup for dinner. Puts herself to bed early and wakes up alone, just like every other morning. She tells herself she can manage this way, that she’ll be fine. Plenty left to fill up her days. 

She goes into town when the snow lets up, stops by to buy more yarn to collect dust on a shelf. Buys herself some hot chocolate and a new hat too, pulls out the little spare phone she carries around everywhere now. but of course there’s nothing, there will never be anything, and there’s a calmness in the certainty of that. 

_I bought some yarn,_ she texts into the oblivion that is Roman’s contact. _The girls used to call that a sign of pending emergency._

The drive back to the city the next day is treacherous, she probably should have waited it out, but she’s feeling a tad reckless and perhaps also numb, goes about unpacking her things as soon as she gets in, snow still melting in her hair. 

The work week is long and tedious, as so many of them now are, and she finds herself fiddling with the crystal as she makes calls, isn’t quite sure how it even ended up in her work bag. Packs it back up just the same at the end of her day, tucking it into a purse pocket, right next to a phone that won’t ring. 

“Drinks?” Karolina asks, appearing in her doorway, but Gerri shakes her head. Can’t imagine she’d be decent company, certainly doesn’t want to talk shop. 

“Rain check,” she says with a forced smile, knows Karolina will sense any bullshit she offers up. 

The city only got a light dusting of snow, the streets sludgy and gray, the cloud cover nearly disappearing now, no longer offering a gentle tent of light, and she finds herself wondering if Isla misses New York, whether she enjoyed Christmas in California, the newness of it all the excitement she needed to eclipse the strangeness of the weather there. But then, she’s never been to Ojai, can’t even properly remember where it is in California, so maybe it’s colder there than she thinks, Roman’s new home filled with lights and food, the laughter that always seemed to follow him. 

. . .

She goes to London on Waystar business, finds relief in the fact that her coming here no longer means having to see Caroline, a tiny reprieve offered by Stewy’s smart mouth and truly odious taste in cologne. 

_I would love to know what animal died to produce Stewy’s cologne,_ she texts Roman, once she’s settled in her hotel room, a drink in her hand. 

It isn’t an unhealthy habit she’s developed, is surely bordering between masochism and something darker, more worrisome, but she still sends something about every other day. Sometimes a memory or an observation, occasionally something shitty and petty like this, the outgoing messages piling up in a cloud somewhere. 

Stewy likes to hold court, all charm and sass, little substance, and Gerri muddles through being a hostage at dinner, smoothing over the feathers he clearly ruffles. She can tell right away the deal is going to fall apart, the polite smiles already strained by the fifth course, and she thinks here about Roman’s way with people and how much easier it made her professional life, even back when she didn’t quite trust him. 

_I don’t think I ever told you how impressed I was in Japan_ , she texts from her hotel bed, a third drink that’s probably a mistake in her hand. _The way you listened to those families so sincerely, none of the bullshit anyone else would have pulled. The way you opened yourself to them despite being fresh from Grace’s death, obviously struggling. Those dinners you invited me to, made me enjoy in spite of myself and our tricky rapport._

She finishes her drink, double checks her alarm, though she rarely sleeps until it goes off anymore. Takes her pill, drinks her water, picks up the phone again after she turns out the light. 

_There was one night that almost told you I’d had a nice time, stopped myself when I realized how that would sound. Too personal, not at all professional. I still remember the way you stared at me as I closed the door that night, still standing there in the hall._

Roman’s favorite taunt was that he should have fucked her in Japan. It never would have happened, not at that point in time, but she thinks about it now, one hand slowly touching the skin of her thigh. He was so tentative in his first few touches, always checking in, even about a simple caress of her cheek, and she imagines how stilted he would have been in Japan, his movements drifting toward clumsy, unnerved by the lack of trust between them. Her own hand is steady and sure, certain of its goal as she imagines inviting him into her hotel room for a drink, the look of confusion on his face that would morph into embarrassment as he realized her intention, quickly looking for an out. She’s spent years of her life tricking people into thinking her ideas were actually their own, knows she could have had Roman on his back, panting away, his cock in her hand. 

It’s easier with a vibrator, she rarely sees the point in masturbating without one, but she thinks about the sounds he would make inside her, the way he’d groan like he was in some species of pain, and it doesn’t take long before her fingers are sticky and wet, her skin covered in goosebumps, toes curled against the sheet.

She sleeps soundly that night, wakes up to a mark on her thigh she doesn’t remember making, a small red crescent left by a nail, and she glides through her day feeling like she’s carrying a secret under her skirt. But in fact she’s mostly out of secrets now; all she has left is her job, a feigned smile, and a cold, empty bed.

Tensions between Sandy and Stewy seem more obvious after the failure in London, tiny cracks beginning to grow. Cyd has been looking for a place to lend, resignation at the ready, but she catches Gerri’s eye in a meeting, gives her a cheshire smile when Sandy frowns at something Stewy says, and Gerri holds her gaze. Silently affirms what the woman’s already thinking. 

“I give him a year,” Karolina says over drinks.

“Eighteen months if he dances well,” Gerri allows. Doesn’t see any point in holding back. “You sticking around?”

“Haven’t decided,” Cyd admits, but Gerri thinks she has. “What about you?” 

“Me?” Karolina says, checking her phone. Probably her wife, given her expression. “Where would I go?”

“You could follow our former pipsqueak-in-chief. Help him do whatever’s next.”

“Haven’t heard from him,” Karolina shrugs Cyd off. “Word on the street was he was dipping his toes into some VC thing, but he pulled out of that almost immediately. Even his sister’s mum about whatever he’s doing.”

“What venture capital thing?” Gerri asks, tries not to sound too curious, but then Karolina’s phone is ringing, and by the grimace on her face, it’s work related. 

“You really don’t know what he’s up to?” Cyd asks, Karolina sequestered off in a corner, obviously triaging, and Gerri watches her just for something to do. Presses her lips together and shakes her head, finally turning back toward Cyd.

“Huh,” Cyd says, sounds sour.

 _I think Karolina would quit Waystar in a second if you offered her a job_ , she texts Roman in bed that night. She’s tried to stop, told herself it’s an odd fixation to have, but it feels worse to have it all trapped in her chest, nowhere else for the words to go, and she wonders if this is what people feel right before they pack themselves off to therapy. 

_I try not to think about what you’re doing out there, some new kingdom you’re probably building up brick by brick. But I know you and I know your talent, and it’s selfish to dwell on the fact I won’t be a part of it._

She tells him about getting hired at Waystar, the rush of adrenaline in those early years, her wagon so quickly hitched to Baird’s. The way she dodged all the cocaine back then, Roman’s mother useful in that regard, could never stand how it turned otherwise intelligent people into manic, incoherent ramblers.

_I’m sorry you never got to experience your godmother coked out of her mind because the only person I have ever enjoyed in that state was Cyd._

She feels a little lighter for having typed all that out, goes to sleep easily and wakes up in the morning feeling better than average, her work day less of a slog.

“Steal the company lawyer's time for a second?” Stewy asks, leaning against her open door in a way she finds bothersome, not at all charming. She doesn’t try to force a smile in reply.

“Not stealing if you’re paying for it,” she says. Gestures to the seat across from her. 

His pretext for the impromptu meeting is bullshit, something he could have asked of five other people and that he clearly doesn’t care about anyway. Wastes twenty minutes of her time before he pauses. Says, “So hey, have you heard anything about how Kendall’s doing?”

She gives him a patient smile, her stare enough to make him fidget after a few seconds. He’s annoying as fuck, but she remembers the way he always looked at Roman’s brother, something that wasn’t quite brotherly love in his eyes. It must be hard to miss someone who didn’t want him back, never wanted him in the right way.

“I am fresh out of all Roy news,” she says, leaning back in her chair. She doesn’t think it’s much of an admission; if she and Roman were being tailed before, they’re certainly still checking up on her. She tries not to entertain the possibility that whoever's assigned to her feels mostly pity as they watch her through the camera lens now, an aging woman who mostly shuffles between work and otherwise empty homes. 

Stewy slinks out if her office and she texts Claire, invites her for a round of shopping over the weekend. It’s supposed to be sunny, warm enough with a jacket, and the tantalizing closeness of spring often makes her try harder with her eldest, no matter that she always regrets it. 

Their lunch on Saturday is easy, deceptively pleasant, Claire chatting away about her new project, very little input needed from Gerri. 

“You look better in the jewel toned one,” she observes about a dress later, can hear Claire huff even as stays turned around, examining herself in a mirror, the light in the dressing room too yellow, not ideal.

“But I like the cream one.” 

Gerri presses her lips together, knows better than to say anything else. Can’t understand how she raised someone so smart and yet still so singularly devoted to being wrong; colors that are always too pale for her skin, inexperienced contractors, men who won’t stay, men she’d grow to hate if they did.

They’re in another shop when Gerri sees a flouncy purple dress, digs out the other phone and snaps a picture of it, sending it to Roman later, while Claire’s in line to get them coffee. 

_Isla would love it._

“Are you going to tell me about him?” Claire asks, setting their coffees with a graceless thud, her shoulders slumped unattractively when slips into the chair opposite Gerri’s. 

“Him who?” she asks, and Claire makes a frustrated sound at that. Sucks her teeth in a way that Gerri’s always hated, would scold her for as a child.

“Well you’re back together, right,” Claire pushes. Tears off a corner of a danish that looks too sticky to be good. “Weekends in Rhinebeck again. Texting away on that phone.”

“I needed to check on the construction at the country house,” she says, feeling trapped, anger already boiling. “Something you could help with occasionally, since you’re the one who fought me selling the place when I wanted to.”

“Dad had _just_ died,” Claire defends. An old argument, one she will always let herself be drawn into, pointlessly relitigating. Gerri thinks it can buy her some time, maybe push Claire off the previous subject entirely. “Of course I didn’t want to lose my childhood memories. Jesus Christ, Mom. Why do you always do this?”

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Gerri says calmly, a dollop of apology in her tone.

“I lived with you for two months and you still never let me into your life,” Claire says, eyes already welling up. “It’s like we were strangers sharing an apartment.”

“Most adult children would find that ideal,” she replies calmly. “A parent treating them like a roommate with their own life and need for privacy. Not trying to cling, glam onto their kid like some kind of newfound best friend.”

“Don’t strawman me,” Claire says flatly. “I was raised by two lawyers.” It’s hard not to smile at that, Gerri reaching across the table here, her hand hovering by Claire’s, not quite touching. “I just want to know about your life, but you’re always hellbent on shutting me out.”

“I’m not,” Gerri sighs. “There just isn’t much to tell these days, kitten.”

Claire’s face shutters at that, the use of Baird’s old nickname for her enough to shutdown the conversation entirely now. They only make it to one more shop before Claire fakes a phone call, plasters on a paper-thin smile and kisses Gerri’s cheek. 

“Lunch sometime this week?” Gerri asks, and Claire hesitates before she nods. No way they’ll share a meal for at least a month now, but they’ll both pretend here, go through the motions like always.

She stops by the office to work on a few things, give her staff access to her time if they have questions they didn’t want to email.

“You keep playing with that,” Eva chuckles, the two of them talking through another lawsuit that’s cropped up, something Kendall did when he was high. 

Gerri’s hand stills, clutches the crystal in her fist as if to conceal it. She didn’t even realize she’d picked it up, has possibly been fiddling with it in other meetings, if Eva’s amusement is anything to go by. 

“Stress relief,” she says. Tries to sound light, teasing, not at all like a crazy woman who’s taken to doing a neurotic thing. 

“Can’t say I blame you,” Eva gives a half smile, stretching her neck. “Opening Mets game can’t come fast enough.”

“Do you actually go to games?” She should know this, Eva has worked for long enough, but their time is normally so filled with things to get done, items to cross off lists, she rarely asks personal questions, just waits for the information to fall into her lap.

“Not usually. Not enough hours in the week. But Roman gave me those box seats when he left, and I’d hate to waste them.”

“I didn’t know he did that,” she says. Finds herself spinning the crystal in her hand again. 

“They were delivered without a note, but I mean, it was him. Such a sweet thing to do and I never got to thank him.” Eva smiles here, that disarming charm Gerri so often deploys to the benefit of the office. “Thank him for me, will you?”

 _It’s an odd feeling to wonder if one’s own life no longer passes the Bechdel test,_ she writes to Roman that night, after she’s plodded through a summary of her day with Claire. Noted Eva’s thanks. _People, women, keep bringing you up and I handle it poorly every time. Too hard to be honest, even now._

She talks for a while about the Rhinebeck house, the construction almost finished now. Meanders through more thoughts about Claire and her strange attachment to that house, no matter that their weeks there as a family were hardly picturesque. 

_Sometimes, when the work fell away, I would put all my energy into giving them the kind of happy family life I thought they wanted. But it never lasted, Baird and I would fight or there’d be a call from Logan that wrecked everything. I’ve started to question whether the thing Claire actually resents was the facade, her mother never around until she was, painfully pretending to be what she clearly was not._

She’s written about Baird and their marriage a handful of times now, but it’s harder to talk about the girls, the ways she might have failed them. 

_Everyday I think about the fact that the last words I said to Isla were a reprimand. I’m not sure what it says about me that I feel more guilt about that than I do all the anger Claire clearly feels toward me._

. . .

_Send Samantha’s card out. Call Frank about lunch. Reschedule doctor’s appointment._

She texts the list because the phone is in her hand and she doesn’t want to get up, find her real phone or her planner, stays on the couch instead, pecking out random thoughts until she can’t delay going to bed anymore. 

_I don’t think you’d like the new bathroom tile in the master. You’d approve of the tile down the hall though, reminds me a bit of the guest bathroom across from your study._

The construction is finally done, she and the girls all in Rhinebeck, Emily in town for a few days before she heads to DC for work. She’s taken to sleeping in Emily’s old room whenever she comes here, but that option obviously doesn’t exist this weekend, the room occupied, and she’s half asleep on the couch by the time she gathers the wherewithal to go to bed. She doesn’t dawdle as she takes out her earrings and washes her face, swallows her pill down with the bourbon she’s been nursing for the last hour.

She knows it’s better if she doesn’t think about the sex, the slide into celibacy easier the farther away she gets from Roman and his wicked, nimble mouth. There were men after Baird, perfunctory couplings she considered necessary, afraid to become one of those cliché widows with a closet full of a dead man’s loafers still littering a walk-in floor. The sex was always fine, satisfactory, no better or worse than Baird. Nothing like the revelation that Roman felt like, her mind clouded by lust for weeks, subsisting on only gentle touches, kisses, heavy petting on a couch.

She doesn’t touch herself, she won’t with the girls just down the hall. It’s claustrophobic enough to have them both here, Emily asleep in the bed Gerri now favors, Isla’s old bedding changed out from the guest room, purple linens folded neatly away. Buried like a secret in the closet, piled under grays and blues, the muted yellows Emily favors.

Breakfast is an affair, all of them trying to cook, getting in each other’s way. Emily excuses herself quickly, settles down at the dining table with her phone and a cup of coffee, and Gerri admires the retreat as much as she’s vexed by it, stuck fighting for space with Claire, neither of them speaking after she tuts about a pan hissing with too much grease.

“Thanks,” Emily says amiably, when the food is presented.

“Sure,” Gerri says, sucks the sigh in, Claire glaring at her sister here. A war of pointed expressions that Gerri chooses to ignore, ducking her face to her breakfast.

The girls have their first argument by lunchtime, Claire shutting herself upstairs to write, and Gerri joins Emily in the sun room. Sits down with a fresh cup of coffee and a somber expression.

“You’re too hard on her,” Gerri begins, and Emily arches a sculpted eyebrow, looking downright haughty. “I know, I know, I’m a hypocrite, but she’s more sensitive than we are and we both need to try harder.”

“She just takes everything so personally,” Emily huffs.

“One could argue that we do as well,” she hums, plants her hand on her daughter’s knee to soften the blow. “It’s just that we squirrel our hurt feelings away. Store them up as reasons to keep people at a distance.”

“Ouch,” Emily says. “Read my therapist’s notes much?”

“Are you back to seeing the last one?” she asks, feeling surprisingly hopeful at that. 

“I found a new one,” Emily allows. “And don’t make that face, I know you hate therapy.”

“Well I’m bad at it,” she says. “That’s not the same thing as being philosophically opposed.”

“Claire thinks you’re back together with whoever you were dating,” Emily informs her, always too quick to betray her sister. 

“I’m not,” she breathes out, finds she doesn’t have to debate the words before she speaks them. “Things got hard and instead of trusting him like I should have, I fucked it all up.” 

“Mom,” Emily says, freckled face contorted in pain. “I’m sorry.”

She makes herself smile, a reflex from work but also being a mother, covering for Baird’s occasional dalliances, never letting the girls know. If the price of that is they grew up thinking her cold, she thinks it could be worse.

She tries to entice Claire out of her lair, go into town and do something, but her oldest just shakes her head, face bent over her laptop. Tells her that she’s working, to go without her, an air of hurt to the words even as she types. 

. . .

She finally calls Frank about having lunch, finds out with horror that the man’s just been released from the hospital.

“I’m fine,” he assures. “Just a little complication. I’m being old and convalescent this week. Hanging around the house. But how ‘bout next Tuesday?”

She ends up traveling that day, but she sees him the Thursday immediately after, suggests meeting at the deli he likes.

She tries not to outwardly react to the weight he’s lost, but the pallor of his skin looks good, nothing like the way Baird looked before he died, and she takes comfort in that. Tries not to ply him with questions as they order sandwiches, Frank skipping his usual coffee with cream and two sugars in favor of some water.

“I’m really okay,” he laughs, and Gerri only looks at him here because he said that before, called his health scare a minor one. 

“I should have called sooner,” she shakes her head. “I’m sorry.”

“Okay,” he says slowly. Seems to take a measured beat. “I think it’s my turn to ask if you’re okay.”

“I’m fine,” she defends, angrily sipping her coffee. “Don’t be an asshole when I’m worried about you.”

He laughs at that, tells her a few stories about his grandkids, both of them settling into Waystar talk eventually.

“Seems like Stewy and Sandy are a bad match,” he says over his pastrami sandwich, a deli pickle crunching between his teeth. 

“Very,” she agrees. “I find it strange they went into this together to begin with.” On paper it makes sense, Stewy the in, Sandy the muscle, but they clearly don’t trust each other, don’t even like each other, and the company will suffer if Stewy hangs around too long, Sandy possibly reluctant to scrape him off his shoe.

“You think there’s a play there?”

“Undoubtedly,” she huffs out a laugh. “But I’m not interested.”

“Packing your knives up?” he needles, earning him a smirk before Gerri settles back in the booth. Waits out the moment because if anyone can understand this, it’s him; an ex-wife who hates him, the mother of his child buried in the ground, his son off in another city.

“Not a lot to show for it in the end,” she says. 

“No,” he gives her a sad smile. “Just the money and a house I keep filling up with junk.”

She wants to ask him about Roman, has a sense of fairness that kicks in before she can get the words out. Tabitha would be the easier mark, but she hasn’t contacted her either, never considered asking the woman to plead her case. Apparently knows better, if only belatedly, than to subvert Roman's closest relationships for her own gain, risk undermining his trust in the people around him.

“It was good to see you,” she says later, settles for a hand on Frank’s arm rather than a hug. Knows what tricks the mind can play when a person is lonely, doesn’t want to risk crossing any wires.

“You too,” he nods. “Let’s do this again soon.”

 _The hardest thing about losing Baird was the loss of a routine, all the little rituals I’d built to anchor myself in the constant press of life_ , she types out in the car. _Baird was my partner, a guide of sorts when I was younger, but I didn’t love him in the way I love you, and when he died I was trapped in this perpetual state of not feeling enough and sometimes feeling too much. You were such a delightful surprise, a risk I knew I shouldn’t be taking, and I’ll always be grateful for that._

. . .

Sandy stops by her office, obviously in a bad mood, but she has dinner plans with Claire, and she won’t push it off for an unscheduled tête-à-tête, attempt to make in roads with a man who reminds her too much of Logan to trust even slightly.

“Enjoy your dinner,” he says, a smile that’s not quite charming, certainly not sincere. He values her advice even if he considers a necessary evil, probably won’t angle to get rid of her unless there’s a scandal to throw another skull at, blame bad counsel, the lingering stench of the Roy’s.

Claire looks radiant at dinner, no Howard beside her, and Gerri feels a lurching in her stomach. Remembers the last time her daughter accepted an idiot’s proposal, turning up just like this, rosy and glowing, her fiancé too chicken shit to face Gerri’s disapproval.

“You look lovely,” she says, bussing her daughter’s cheek. “And I already like this restaurant.”

“I thought you might,” Claire smiles. Already has a martini waiting for her, which could go either way in terms of omens. 

“Thanks.” Gerri smiles, nerves alight.

Claire chats away, no mention of Howard at all, which is odd, unexpected. Typically she tries to PR the useless pricks she’s taken up with, undoubtedly understands that they need it, can’t rest on their own merits. 

“But maybe I’ll redo that room over the summer,” Claire is saying over the appetizer, and Gerri decides to speed this up. 

“Does Howard have any thoughts about it?” she asks, pleasantly enough, and Claire scoffs, savagely tears off a piece of bread in a way that makes Gerri grimace. 

“Oh, I’m sure Howard has lots of thoughts about my apartment, but he can shove them all up his ass.”

So maybe not an engagement then, but definitely something, Gerri waiting it out with growing impatience because Emily would have just told her flat out over the phone, maybe announced it before her back was even flush with the restaurant’s booth.

“Claire,” she sighs eventually. “Will you please just tell me why you brought me here?” She’s hoping for a new book deal, perhaps just another boyfriend, but announcements like this are always something bigger and always about a choice that’s undoubtedly a mistake. 

“I was going to wait until after dinner,” Claire says, which is plainly a lie. She’s been trying to get the gumption up to say it for the last hour, stalling every time she was presented with the chance, a lull in the conversation. 

“Okay,” she says, biting off the rest of the words. Tries not to compare Claire to Baird here, remember the way he’d always stall, force her to poke and prod, then get mad at her for being ill humored.

“Mom,” Claire says, drawing herself up straighter. “I’m pregnant.”

“I’m sorry, what,” she pulls up short. Almost spills her drink across the white tablecloth.

“Pregnant,” Claire repeat slowly. “You know, that thing that you explained to me when I was nine. You just skipped the part where the man says he doesn’t want to be a father, and then the woman tells him to get the hell out of her life.”

“Oh, Claire,” she says. Briefly closes her eyes. 

“Don’t do that,” Claire rushes to say, already sounding angry. “Don’t treat this like it’s a bad thing.”

“You’re pregnant and alone, how is this not a bad thing?” She doesn’t stop the regrettable words before they fly out of her mouth, Claire’s eyes immediately welling up with tears a moment after they land. “Honey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

“You did,” Claire says, voice rising, people already starting to look over at them. “God, I knew you would do this, but Em always says to give you a chance, even though you never. . .” 

Claire’s out of the booth and then out of the restaurant before Gerri can flag down the waiter, thrusting her credit card into his hands. She isn’t in a cab by the time Gerri finally makes it out to the sidewalk, is still trying to frantically hail one when Gerri grabs her arm, feels like a monster when she sees her daughter’s streaked mascara, her chin wobbling with hiccuped sobs.

“Just wait,” she tries, but Claire shrugs her off, pulling her arm back. “At least let my driver drop you off at home.”

“I don’t need your help,” Claire cries, sounding so painfully angry through her tears. “I’ll be fine.”

“You aren’t fine,” Gerri pushes. “And I’m sorry. Honey, I’m sorry.”

“Has it occurred to you that you only use pet names when you want something?” That makes her flinch, taking a step back, her hand no longer on Claire’s arm.

“That isn’t true,” she defends, but she isn’t actually sure at the moment, the most obvious counterexamples clustering around Isla, none springing to mind that involve Emily or Claire.

“I keep hoping you’ll be better,” Claire says, shaking her head. “But you’ll never respect me, will you?” Gerri’s car arrives a minute later, and she manages to usher Claire into it, offering some tissues out of her purse after they’re settled in the back. “Drop me off first, please,” she says to the driver, and Gerri watches her, both of them taking shaky breaths.

“I’m trying to be better,” she says plainly. 

“For who?” Claire demands. “Me? Roman Roy? That kid of his that you redecorated an entire room of our house for?” She feels likes been physically slapped, works very hard not to react, recoil, but Claire is every bit her daughter, sharp and observant, and on rare occasion cruel. “Rhinebeck’s a small town, Mom. And not many people have a kid named Isla.” She smirks, an ugly expression across her pretty, tear stained face. “First real relationship after Dad and it was just more Waystar bullshit, not even something-“

“Enough,” she hears herself hiss, a finger in Claire’s face, the tone enough to make her daughter recoil, no matter that she’s thirty-three, waist deep in her own mistakes. “You will not speak of them.”

The rest of the drive is silent and angry, and she makes no move to express affection or apology when Claire gets out of the car, her daughter’s anger obviously deflating into something else, some kind of pain Gerri can’t bring herself to care about now. 

Claire calls her the next day, but she’s in a meeting, her phone switched to silent, and when Gerri returns the call that night, she gets sent directly to voicemail. She still can’t bring herself to care as much as she should, feels anger in the place she knows the guilt should be. Gets through the week, has dinner with an old friend from law school who is full of joy and pictures of her grandchildren, Gerri quick to turn on a smile and tell a story. Not difficult to act as the proud mother here, both of her daughters impressive in their own right. 

It’s been days since she typed something out on the spare phone, is in the middle of trying to break the habit again. She downloaded a lot of her thoughts right after the Claire fiasco happened, but didn’t feel better for it, only numb. Knows she needs to stop keeping a diary couched as messages to a man who’s decided he’s better off without her.

 _It’s a profoundly humbling experience,_ she pecks out, television on low in the living room, _realizing one has failed at something so foundational, instinctual, as being a mother._

She sets the phone down on the nightstand when she goes to bed, can’t remember now whether she took her blood pressure medicine. Another danger of living alone: no witnesses around to question about things like this.

She’s asleep when she hears the ringing, almost hits her alarm in her stupor, but it isn’t her alarm and it’s still nighttime, and the little phone on her nightstand is buzzing across the smooth grain of the wood. The rational part of her brain knows that it’s a wrong number, the kind of thing that happens once a month, always sends her scrambling, heart racing, but she flips it over and there on the screen is Roman’s name, and she isn’t certain that this isn’t some strange, painful dream.

“Hello?” she says, her voice harsh in the darkness.

“I find it hard to believe you were actually that bad of a mother,” he says, voice clear and low, no offer of a soft entry into the conversation.

“Believe it,” she says, after a brief, stunned pause. Decides her best strategy is to keep him on the phone, draw as many words out of him as she can. 

“Things with Claire still in the shitter?”

“A little south of the shitter,” she says, matching his casual tone, difficult when her breath is catching in her chest. “I assumed you blocked my number.”

“I got that,” he sighs. “Well, suspected, but felt like the hypothesis was confirmed when you started texting me your to-do lists.”

Fuck, she forgot about that. Feels all the words she’s sent out into the oblivion come roaring back, into the forefront of her mind, and it feels like her skin’s been pulled back, her darkest thoughts laid bare for Roman’s casual entertainment.

“I guess I should thank you for not filing a restraining order,” she says, though she doesn’t feel at all thankful. She feels duped, which is irrational, and overexposed, which is not. Might actually be moved to hang up on him if it weren't for the fact that she’s been desperately craving the sound of his voice for months.

“Claire will come around,” he says, sounding annoyingly confident here. “She’ll need you too much to sustain that level of anger.”

“I don’t know,” she breathes out. Lies back down, the phone still pressed against her face. “She’s remarkably stubborn.”

There’s a lull after that, Gerri attempting to sift through appropriate things to say, push aside the reflexive anger and the questions. Remembers the way they would talk like this, night after night, sometimes smoothly, sometimes fumbling into something exciting but terrifying, his voice a treat she would look forward to at the end of the day.

“I blocked your number after the first text,” he says, doesn’t wait for her to ask. “But that actually felt worse. Made me sick to my fucking stomach. So I unblocked it a few days later, and then the messages started rolling in.”

She tries to remember the first few things she sent him, knows there were a couple of apologies in there, at least one pathetic, uncharacteristic plea. She tells him as much, hears the sharp inhale on the other end of the line.

“I’m sorry I missed those,” he says, voice so unbearably soft. “Hey, did you ever call Frank?”

“I did,” she says, treading even lighter here. “It’s good to see him bounce back.”

“That bastard scared the daylights out of me,” he complains. Sounds genuinely put upon, which makes her mouth soften out of its hard line. “And he never mentioned having seen you.”

“I didn’t ask after you beyond the first time I saw him,” she admits. Hopes it’ll spare Frank whatever conversation Roman might have in store for him now. “I wanted to, but it didn’t seem fair.”

“Hm,” he hums, which she can’t quite read. He yawns after that, the sound muffled on the line. “It’s good to finally hear your voice, but I should probably get to sleep.” She’s not sure how to respond to that, not when he could have heard her voice months ago if he’d only done more than passively reading the words flooding into his inbox. “Is it okay if I call you tomorrow night?”

“I’ll be home by eight,” she finds herself saying. Realizes immediately that she should have angled for something else, not put herself right back in the position of waiting for a phone to ring.

“Tomorrow then,” he says, a lightness to his voice she has trouble wrapping her head around.

“Rome?” she stops him from hanging up. Wants to get the words out in case he doesn’t call again. “I’m sorry.”

“You write beautifully,” he says in lieu of replying. “Even when the words were tearing my guts out with a dull knife, they were beautiful, and I felt lucky to get to read them. Goodnight.” 

“Night,” she manages. Lays very still after that, listening to the silence on the other end of line, unsure what to feel once he’s gone.

. . .

  
  



End file.
